Of Wonder and Compulsion
by aimorai
Summary: A one-shot, detailing the first night between Hawke and Fenris - an interpretation of some of the mysteries surrounding Fenris - the origin of the favor, his experience, his emotions, his fear. Rated M for content. F!Hawke mage xFenris, Friendmance


Author: aimorai

Word Count: 5, 624

A/N A one-shot, detailing that first night between F!Hawke and Fenris. The Hawke here is a mage, but I have deliberately tried to leave other details of her appearance vague, so the reader may interpret. I've wondered a lot about the source of the "favor" Fenris carries, his mindset during the evening, whether or not he was previously experienced, etc. I hope you enjoy this, my interpretation of how things happened that night, and why! As always, Bioware owns everything, I just play in their sandbox from time to time! Comments, criticisms, and compliments are always welcome!

"You don't need to leave, Fenris."

Her normally assured voice was soft, and Fenris was fairly certain that it was the gentle vulnerability that was ultimately going to do him in.

Well, that and the _touching_.

Fenris could remember precious few moments in his life when he had enjoyed the touch of another person against his skin. It had far less to do with pain than he let on; the burn of the lyrium was an old hurt, and one that he was certain was in his mind as much as his body. After all, his first real memory was of unnatural, fiery _pain_ lancing over his body and through his skin - of Danarius' mouth forming ritual words, and the lyrium permanently molding itself to him like some kind of parasite. Those sorts of things were not easily forgotten. They went beyond mere memory and became a part of him, as much as his blood and flesh and sinew. Those were the hurts that mattered. Passing discomfort at the feel of fingers was nothing in comparison.

When he had been Danarius' guard, he had seen and felt plenty. While he was never actually _used_ - he was considered both too dangerous and too valuable - he had been by his old master's side during opulent parties and their aftermath. He'd had his own body alternately coveted and mocked as though he were a plaything - had had soft hands slide down his abdomen only to dig nails into lower, more sensitive flesh. There was nothing of pleasure in any of that for him. Sexuality was, like so many other things, detached from Fenris. It was merely...something he had watched Danarius do. Fenris was knowledgeable without being experienced, and had never desired to be thrown in amongst the hedonism.

As a slave, he felt he'd had no sway over his own life, so what was love to him? What was desire? They were things that only a fool would follow. Had he expressed even a passing attachment to anyone but his master, Fenris had no doubt that Danarius would have used those feelings merely to grind him further under his heel - to exploit them and twist them with magic or lies. There had been no one, even after he'd finally gained his independence. There had been flirting, though not of the sort Isabela did - casting herself at whomever struck her fancy. There had been moments of abstract wonder without compulsion, but that had been the extent of it. Whenever Fenris thought of _hands_ on him, he always ended back in his memories, twined in magic and regret.

But _Hawke_. Her touch...was different. Soft, like her voice. She was neither afraid to touch him nor perverse, but merely...comforting. Hawke was certainly the only mage to have gripped his skin without delving into the battery of magical power he possessed.

She was speaking to _him_. Not his markings, not his pride, not his sword. _Him_.

Fenris didn't know what to do with the knotted ball of emotions that knowledge evoked. Frustration, confusion, pain; flaring kernels of hope and sadness that made him bunch his muscles tight. In the end, it coalesced to shame - for his state, for his actions, for every condescending thing he'd ever said to her. And he was _never_ ashamed.

There was no way to hide from the flash of lyrium blue that chased after her fingertips - nothing to do but try to own it, to make her understand without having to go through the misery of explanation.

Fenris didn't know how to speak in the language of comfort and softness that she used. He turned, whipping her against the wall harder than he'd meant to; holding her there, so her fingers couldn't _touch_ him like that again. His forearms and shoulders felt tight with his own self-contempt, and he could not look at her. She might _see_. All of it, any of it. Fenris didn't know if he was more ashamed of his regard for her, or his fear of her - but he wanted neither emotion transmitted.

Very clearly to his right, he saw the deep shadows nestled in-between the stairs that led to the second floor of the house. He'd climbed them, just once. Trying to find her. She'd been sleeping. He'd left.

Now, she was pressing forward against his grip, and he turned his head in surprise.

Caught her lips, which were seeking his with _desperation_, the look on her face-

Fenris stood shock-still for that aching, tender moment when the edges of her lips brushed and then firmed over his. The buried hope of _her_ that he didn't deserve to have- that he didn't _understand_- lifted and unwound itself against her mouth, and he breathed out, parting his lips, seeking something nameless but coveted in the recesses of his mind. She took his breath and seemed to swallow it, and turned him against the wall. Pushing him as hard as he had pushed her. It could have been a caricature of their usual dance...but it was sweeter now, with the taste of her, and her hands were on his neck, and they _did not burn_. They _did not take_.

Her lips were gliding over his; pushing and pulling like the gentle swells of a rising tide. It was a counterpoint to the rough handling that had gone between them. Fenris didn't know if Hawke had turned him harshly because he had unintentionally done so to her, or because she was feeling something similar to him. The energy of his body felt - spasmodic. It wasn't able to be smooth, like her, and he was handicapped because he was not a subtle creature by nature. When he wanted to touch her sides, his arms tightened and squeezed, then released. He wanted to mimic her mouth, but all that seemed to happened was a slackened jaw.

He desired...something, but he didn't know how to do it. When Fenris had thought about physicality, he has assumed that _doing_ would be similar to _watching_. But he had not expected the swell of tense heat in his abdomen and a nameless, choking heavy sensation under his breastbone. He hadn't expected to be fixated on the taste of a woman on his tongue. Hawke was spiced wine, and her lips had just a hint of salt and metal, but when she opened her mouth to him like that- it all melted in unexpected warmth.

She pulled back just when he felt he was finding purchase, and Fenris's eyes slowly opened - blinking and tilted towards the floor. He could see Hawke's knees, and those ridiculous boots she wore around her house-

"Come."

Her voice startled him; he glanced up. Where was his _breath_?

Hawke was looking at him with a gaze that was one part measuring and two parts glittering, and it made something twist in his navel. He didn't respond but merely gave her the slightest of nods, feeling his mouth pull, his lips thin - he didn't even know what expression he was making, and could only hope it was half as conflicted as he felt. She smiled slowly and turned towards the stairs, somehow both confident and hopeful - that touch of optimism that he both respected and pitied.

Fenris felt like a clanking interloper behind her silent steps, but her room was close enough. These precious few moments of movement were the definition of a long, drawn in breath. The house was dark and curiously intimate; the walls seemed closer, the fires more bright and cheery. Everything was impeccable, and bathed in forgiving shadow. It was not at all like his mansion, where the corners were ominous and the fire foreboding as much as welcoming. Their footsteps took them past another bedroom - he could only assume it belonged to Hawke's mother, or perhaps her dwarven manservants. A wave of retroactive embarrassment slid underneath his skin; they had been terribly exposed in the hallway. Against a wall. He was glad for Hawke's intervention - a cold slab of unfeeling wood was no place for intimacy, and he'd been too in shock to understand the implications of the environs in the moment.

He was no fool; he knew what was about to happen. That was no mere kiss, but rather an introduction. Fenris found himself surprised. He had _thought_, in the dead of night, of her. Never really of himself _with_ her, but of her body. Of...her in happiness. Of the way that clothes clung to certain parts of her form and then relented, or of that half-hooded look she got when she was deep in thought. He knew which corner of her lips she bit when she was excited about something. He knew that the duskier shades of her voice made him strangely energetic and unable to sleep. Sometimes those thoughts would pile upon him until he felt the ghost of her in his mansion, and he would pace. After three years, she was etched into his mind as surely as the lyrium was into his skin, but he had not even _dared_ to work out what the remedy for his affliction might be - at least not in his conscious thoughts.

Further, he had not guessed that she was similarly...fascinated. That she _wanted_...him. She had indicated some level of care and regard for him after he'd asked her straight about it - after all, flirting was one thing, but intention was another, and he'd had to know if she was serious. Hawke had a habit of inappropriate jokes. She'd smiled, and the words "Only you" from her lips had sounded both beautiful and ridiculous. When nothing had come of it immediately, he'd tried to forget. People often said one thing and then changed their minds in the following hours or days. But _now_...here they were.

She was opening the door to her bedroom, and he was following her, as usual, into the unknown. The thought made him chuckle, and she turned with a lifted brow.

"Is something funny?"

"I was just thinking that I follow you into a lot of...interesting situations, Hawke."

She laughed - a sound somewhere between expectant and nervous. It was brief, but somehow lent a calm to the air. "I hope that by the end of the night, you can come up with a better word than 'interesting,' Fenris." She smiled, then sat on the edge of the bed and gave him a soft look, her face taking on a measuring, thoughtful vein. "Are you sure that this is...what you want?"

"Are you?" His immediately reply startled him, but it had kicked out from his instincts, and he rarely ignored such impulses. It was only belatedly that he heard the bristle - the defensiveness in his own tone, and Fenris looked away.

"Yes." Hawke's lopsided smile, which he saw out of the corner of his eye, warmed and relieved him.

Fenris turned back to her, gaze catching hers in the low light; his legs finally found the wherewithal to take steps towards her. His hand came forward - the tips of his gauntlets touched Hawke's chin. She stilled. "I would be a fool not to want this."

Her smile was a reward in and of itself. She beckoned him closer, and with her eyes on him, started to remove what pieces of his armor she could - gauntlets, plating, belt and the like. She was very quiet; methodical, but tender - when she revealed his hands, the backs of her knuckles curled over his palm. He found himself unthinking for long periods of time, just coming to terms with the crests of feeling that rose and fell inside of his chest in time with her movements, the way that she seemed to enjoy herself with this simple and unexpected intimacy.

When he was finally divested of all but his pants, Hawke was looking tenderly over the swirls of lyrium that covered his body - arms, chest, abdomen. She ran a finger along the inner part his wrist, between some of them, and Fenris watched the trek, fascinated. Tendrils of heat followed her touch, and he hated the part of his mind that suspected her magic was the source, instead of his rising anticipation.

"I don't want to hurt you." He closed his eyes. How could one feel at once ashamed and riveted to the spot? That his thoughts had just a moment prior been drifting over the potential destructive power of her magic immediately prickled; she was speaking of touching the lyrium, but the vulnerability of the moment and her potential to harm made him take a shaky breath.

"You won't." It was statement as much as plea. _Don't hurt me_.

Hawke looked at him through her lashes and then, surprisingly, sat up on the bed, tugging his hand along with her. He hadn't reached out to her at all, but had merely stood - absorbing, assessing, his tension a vanguard of his lack of experience. She put his hand firmly against the side of her face, so that his fingers loosely cradled her jaw; she closed her eyes-against what sensation, he wasn't sure, but something seemed to relax about her. Her lips parted, and her pulse delicately tripped in her throat. His eyes caught on the beat and his thumb curled towards it, pressing in. Her coo was liquid encouragement, and Fenris felt the first bolt of what could only have been desire in the front of his thighs.

Her skin was delicate. Her heartbeat was now directly against the callous of his thumb. Never had he reached out towards the throat of anyone-woman or man-without intending to crush it. _I could hurt her, too_. If he wanted to, he could phase and close her windpipe with a thought, but he found that her soft gasp when he traced his hand down the white column of her throat was infinitely more powerful than the fiercest death blow. The sounds were something primal; beyond words. They spoke of understanding, and of freely given vulnerability. He understood them more than anything she could have said.

She reached out for his other hand-blindly, groping in the dark- and put it above the belt that tied together the silk finery of her gown. Hawke pulled his fingers along the silk over the hem, encouraging him to rove, her head tipping back.

The fabric under his fingers was enthralling- he felt almost clumsy with it, like it was a confection that he wasn't sure how to eat- but the heat of her abdomen below it drew focused concentration. His fingers were long - his handspan nearly covered her waist, and she let out a shaky breath when he squeezed her ribs. Her body was becoming his gravity, and the more he felt each swell and indentation of it under his grip, the more his own reacted. The air contracted around them in simmering heat that had something to do with how her thighs were parting and her tongue was touching her lips, and how his hands made her silk feel hotter and how his arms wanted to crush her to his chest. Fenris' fingers became jumbled in the tie at her waist, and he heard himself mutter an oath; his brows came together. Only then did he realize his fingers were shaking, and that they felt numb when they weren't touching her.

Hawke grasped his hand; his voice seemed to have awakened her from a dream, and before he could protest the move - she'd been so lovely and open and _accepting_ - she shifted to sit on her knees before him, putting his hand into her hair and crushing her mouth into his. The kiss was not impatient so much as desperate: She had kissed him. He had touched her. It seemed that such individual steps were no longer enough for Hawke; he was immediately inclined to agree. Now _they_ were kissing, and _their_ hands together fumbled at the one strap that maintained her propriety, and there was something deeply satisfying about the shift that clicked into place. His arms were free to hold her - to push her bodily into him, and something in the nearness of her mouth, the way she made a soft cry into his lips, the way her back bowed and relented under his embrace, made him shudder. Tightness coiled in his abdomen; hot tension, lanced with both a sense of keen focus on _her_ and a desperation to do twenty things at once. His mind was overtaken by scattered fragments of lust that seemed to blow by on a breeze, previously unexplored and unconsidered. The pressure of her breasts against his chest focused one, and the indentation at the small of her back sparked another on its heels. They were sensory possibilities that made his knees weak. Fenris didn't know how to engage them, and the only thing that held him was Hawke's urgent voice in his ear and his mouth and his neck, all encouragement and soft feminine appeal.

He tried to ask a question, but all that came out was a frustrated rumble from the base of his throat. His right hand speared itself under her loosened top, and his fingers of their own volition closed on the outer swell of her breast. Fenris was assailed by simultaneous exaltation nervousness. Her skin felt as fine as the lace of her underthings, and he was compelled by the rough desire to push them aside, grip and claim; part of him still expected her to call him off at any moment, to say _no, Fenris, not this_, and the rising panic of coming so close, only to lose her and this, shook him.

But she didn't.

Her hands were on his shoulders and she tugged. He barely registered the tight plucking of the lyrium being strummed by her fingertips. His thighs hit the edge of the bed and he fell forward at her insistence - into a cloud of fine linen and silk, the ridiculous comfort of her bed and her skin. The thick mattress pillowed them, and the bed didn't even release one creak in protest - the quick thought of _acceptance_ filtered through his mind, and then was pinned and held by Hawke's thigh wrapping around the outside of his own. She _accepted_ him here, accepted him like this. Just like she accepted his opinion, his life, his rage, his fear - even his friendship. Hawke had never really once told him _no, Fenris_ but instead they talked - far into the nights and mornings. And she was not telling him _no_ now. The knowledge of it made him squeeze his hand so tight over her ribs that he was sure he might break her, but Hawke only lifted, opened, explored him in the same way, with hungry fingers and a restless mouth that tugged and beckoned him, welcomed the experimental swipes of his tongue and pulls of his teeth with an eagerness he needed. Fenris had never seen anything so beautiful as Hawke's ardor. There was no shame in her, no second-guessing at any moment. When his fingers feathered over her stomach she gasped, and he watched the outline of her ribs rise to his touch in the low firelight; watched his fingers firm in confidence and trace the heavy under-swell of her breasts. When he spanned her waist she murmured, guiding him lower with her voice and the rise of her hips - an ancient siren's song his body reacted to; tight pressure in his stomach and lower yet, a swelling that needed touch.

He had seen many women, of all shapes and sizes when he was with Danarius. At the most, they'd gotten a passing appreciative glance, but there was nothing that had gripped him, or made his mouth go dry as it was now, with his touch ranging over her white thighs, and finally, hesitantly, exploring what lay between them. Fenris didn't know if it was simply due to fear, but in that moment, he would have bet his soul that it was because other women were not _her_.

Hawke wasn't just skin and flesh, after all. The years had painted her more indelibly into his senses than any illusions firelight or hot blood could conjur. He'd seen so many facets of her - magic-wielder, diplomat, mercenary. He'd heard all of her bad puns. He knew that she would lay down her life too easily for others. She was stupidly foolish and optimistic, but he wouldn't change that for the world. Perhaps it was her trusting nature that had led them here in the first place.

Here, where he could tip her head back and taste the sweat that was forming between her collarbones. Where his hands could brush over scars that he'd fretted about, late at night. Where he could hear his name on her lips in such an achingly tight tenor that it made his hands grip until they tore something - a sleeve, a hem, he wasn't sure. Something of _hers_. Where she trusted him with the most intimate parts of her body, and it was all he could do to draw his name again from her, to hear it _one more time_.

He finally lost his train of thought when her nails gripped the sides of his trousers, shoving them down - knees and thighs brushed against the length between his legs, and his body seized. A glaring white streak of _want_ seared, and he helplessly pressed himself forward against her hips, seeking haven from his own vulnerable need. His eyes closed, his forehead slumped down against Hawke's shoulders. He half-expected to hear her laugh at him; a brittle thought that made him think of Hadriana. He didn't expect her hand on his face, light as a whisper, urging his head up until he opened his eyes. Hawke delicately shifted her body more directly beneath his, and each movement seemed to grip or slide along him, stretching thin whatever instinct it was that told him to hold still. His hands balled into fists on her bedspread, quick Tevinter curses following her movements until she blessedly stopped.

"It's alright, Fenris." She was breathless, her voice in that thready tenor that made him forget thought. He twitched. His mind seemed only capable of pounding in time with his arousal, he wasn't sure how to reply to her assertion.

Then Hawke _smiled_.

"It's just me." Her hand ruffled back through his hair with a gentleness that astounded him and momentarily banished the ghosts of his past; he felt incapable of doing anything but pulsing above her, and his intentions were _not_ soft. He blew out a tense breath, closing his eyes - he couldn't look at her and speak to her at once, it was _too much_. His head lowered until his nose brushed near her temple; he felt his lips tickle the lobe of her ear. "Hawke..." He was heady on the smell of her - sweat, perfume, and something savory, like vanilla. His heart started to pound louder than the rest of him; he felt the heat of his skin seem to rise, but with his eyes closed he did not at first recognize the soft blue glow of his lyrium, giving away everything again.

His arms snaked beneath her - one near her shoulders, and the other just above her rear. She tilted back, seeming to rest into his embrace and opening, content to let him come to her. It was such a simple movement for such a moment- down and forward, his thighs and flanks contracting, and then quivering when his length found her heat. Fenris blew out his breath, momentarily lost in her, and the sensation of what it might really mean to be _close_. He was blinded now to everything but the compulsion for friction, to slide into it again and again and _again_. It never got old, never relented; each flex of his rear brought both intense relief and renewed need. Hawke was murmuring and bowing beneath him; when he finally opened his eyes to watch her reacting to him, he found her face brightened by the glow of his lyrium -her hands on his chest sinking deeper and deeper until they could not possibly be on his skin anymore, but beneath- _within_. The line between the drive of his hips and the curling of hers was also blurred; gone - where he ended and she began Fenris didn't know, but his overriding sensation was one of being _held_, deep in his core.

Hawke wasn't drawing from him like so many other mages had done - he didn't feel drained, used, discarded. She was merely existing; bathing in whatever force had made him react to her touch; awash with it, seeming to be as enthralled as he was with the sensation. Her eyes were fluttering, and color was high in her cheeks. He felt so full of her that it ached, and there was a moment where he was deeply touched; she wasn't _afraid_ of him, while he speared himself deep, alight just as he was when he made a killing blow. She _accepted_, she _craved_, she _needed_...all of it was in her cresting voice, his name on her lips, and the way her throat worked as her head tilted back, building to something inevitable, and he wanted her to find it _so much_...

A wave crashed into him, hard enough to make him dizzy; blood was rushing through his body and to his head, making him feel as though he shattered into a thousand pieces.

_Leto_...And there was a voice. It was his mother's voice (_I have a mother_), and now his sister's (_I have a sister_), and then... it was many voices. Screams. Flashes of swords and fighting, and his mother laughing and crying at the same time. Money changing hands; the concept of freedom. His own black hair falling in front of his eyes. Laughter. Family. Playing. Tender kisses to his brow. A lifetime that was his and yet not - something he dreamt, once, or perhaps he was dreaming _now_...

Hawke's loud keen broke through it all, and at once Fenris was a fractured person - stuck between what _was_ and what _is_, and even _what could be_. And then that too was gone, ripped away by the insistent pounding in the lowest reaches of his stomach, and the rolling heat of her, clenching around him and drawing all of his concentration. Fenris was no longer gentle, but blind and needy until _he_ was gone, too, growling and crying out, a mess of muscle and nerve, love and hatred. All of it spilled inside of her in a yellow haze that weakened his muscles and left him slumped upon her in a twined mess of limbs and panting breaths.

He didn't even know what he'd had taken from him, exactly; there was just a hollow sense of emptiness that had nothing to do with being physically spent.

His body had claimed everything that he'd just found and destroyed it. Whether he was overtaken by lyrium or ecstasy, the result seemed to be the same.

And it was a cruel fate indeed that providing Hawke's pleasure should give him a moment of clarity, when he only had his own completion to blame for its loss.

Fenris didn't know how to react to that.

Hawke seemed to content to lay beneath him forever; he was only certain that she was awake because her fingers trailed lazy patterns on one of his hips. For one moment, he thought to tell her everything - how he was certain he'd remembered his past, and then forgotten it. How she'd made him feel. How going back to his mansion - and his makeshift bed before the fireplace - seemed both foolhardy and necessary. How beautiful she was. How frightening this was. But the words would not come; his tongue was thick, and there was a slowly-building panic in his chest that he knew would only raise higher once he understood everything that had happened this night.

Gently, he began to disengage from her, and her drowsy head turned. Her lips brushed his cheekbone. "Mm."

He let a small smile show, though his eyes tipped away from her face. "I do not wish to...smother you."

Hawke chuckled, a sound so rich and intimate that it tore a hole through his chest. Slowly, she started to move away, though her fingers danced lingeringly on his arm, moving down to his hand.

"Hmm - what's this?" He looked; she was pulling a wad of red cloth from his fingers - it had apparently been balled in his palm.

"I...ripped your shirt, I believe." Perhaps he should have been chagrined, but his voice sounded almost comically factual to his ears, as though he'd been blandly reporting that the sky was blue.

"Ah." Hawk smirked and clucked her tongue at him, pulling out the bit of linen and drawing it thoughtfully across the back of her hand. She paused only for a moment, and then wound the fabric about his wrist, loosely tying it.

"What are you doing?" Fenris tried to ask gently, but his confusion reigned, as did that strange sucking feeling in his gut. It was _too much_. He was afraid of what she was going to say, and his fear mocked him.

She shrugged eloquently. "Your prize. The piece of me that you...hold. You keep it." She blushed - he could only barely see it in the dying firelight. "You won it, fair and square."

Her attempted joking could not mask the sentiment, and Fenris knew at once that he would both keep the cloth forever, and that he could not ever ask for more from Hawke. He had _taken_ too much, already. She deserved better than the likes of him holding her heart, afraid of the power it seemed to wield over him.

Because he knew, right then, with her looking at him so tenderly, that he could not stay.

~*~

She dressed for the barest modesty only -_in case Sandal comes in early_, she'd said - and then curled up next to him on the bed. Sleep found her easily. It did not find him so.

When he could, Fenris carefully slipped from under the inviting comfort of her coverlet. He paced slowly about the room, eyes touching all of the pieces of her laying about. A chest, full of trinkets from her travels and her home in Lothering. A discarded stocking. Pages spread out over her desk. Their reading lessons with her had only just begun, but he furrowed his brows, trying to make out a signature on one. A...n...d..e..._Anders_. Why did she have anything from the mage? It was a thick bundle bound with twine, like it was a present, and on a destructive and perhaps mildly possessive whim he took the bunch and threw them into the fire by her bed. It felt _wrong_, somehow, for any piece of _that_ mage to be in Hawke's room, so close to her while he slept - like some part of his dangerous hypocrisy might rub off on her.

He dressed. Fenris knew that if he did not, and she begged him to stay, he would not hold out long enough to shield himself from her touches.

One moment of letting himself go entirely into Hawke had both given back and taken away years of memories lost to pain and magic. Much as he wished to be rid of Danarius, his hatred for the man fueled his every day and night. What if he forgot about that? It was the only thing that made him who he was - his whole identity was bound to a few words- _slave_ and _master_ and _magic_. To add to it, there _had been_ a life before, and the very real possibility of remembering - much as he claimed he wanted to - was something more frightening than words could articulate. Even just the small taste of _knowing_ that he'd had a second of reflection made him feel dizzy and his stomach tighten.

What if he had a family, waiting for him? Did he want to know if he'd abandoned them? What if he had a wife, and he remembered her the next time Hawke kissed him? What if he had been a different man than the one that he thoughts he was? Perhaps he'd been a liar, or a coward. Perhaps he'd once liked magic...

It was too much possibility.

He decided he'd rather his angry, bitter hate. His loneliness. These were things he _knew_, things he could _control_. He could control nothing about Hawke, not even his feelings for her. She was too much. _It_ was too much, too fast, too _everything_. His decision was something that he barely understood; he did not expect the same of her. It would be better for her if she forgot about him, hated him, did not forgive him but merely concluded that he was a wasted moment. He would not burden her with his own past and insecurity. She had enough to worry about.

Fenris stood over the fire, watching the orange and yellow flames die. His mind flashed him images of its light playing on her skin, when she'd asked wordlessly for his touch.

At least he could have _one_ happy memory, now. He would have to be content with that.

She stirred, her voice half-asleep and amused.

"It wasn't that bad, was it?"

Fenris closed his eyes.


End file.
